


Beware of Scarlet Summit

by GenerallyHuxurious (GallifreyanOmnishambles)



Series: Huxurious Huxloween [9]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Creepy, Crimson Peak Inspired, Dark Comedy, Dark Crack, Gothic, Grumpy Old Men, Horror, I'm Sorry, M/M, Manipulative Sheev Palpatine, Mild Blood, Mild Gore, Murder Husbands, Paranormal Investigators, This Is STUPID
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-21 17:18:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8253980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallifreyanOmnishambles/pseuds/GenerallyHuxurious
Summary: Set in the Eldritch Effect universe. Major Donal Hux takes his new husband Kylo back to his family's stately home. It's not exactly what Kylo was hoping for... [For Huxloween day 10.]





	

“Oh my god, why does this road have only one lane?! Slow the fuck down!!!”

“Why? The speed limit is 60.”

“Because we’re going to fucking die you lunatic!”

“Oh suddenly MY driving is a problem? Gee, I wonder what that’s like Kylo. Now shush, you’re ruining a nice sunday drive.”

Hux turned the stereo volume as far as it would go, an uncharacteristically wide grin lighting his face with slightly manic glee. They were about to reach the village and he’d wanted to do this since he was eight years old. It had cost him an extra £200 to rent a convertible but it was bloody worth it to drive through, hair streaming, gorgeous guy in the passenger seat and Maiden blasting on the stereo.    
  
_ Fear of the dark, fear of the dark _ __  
_ I have a constant fear that something's always near _ __  
_ Fear of the dark, fear of the dark _ _  
_ _ I have a phobia that someone's always there _

Hux rolled his eyes and hit the brakes halfway through the village. Of course the council would have put a set of traffic lights in at the junction by the pub, just to ruin his fun. He played a drum solo on the steering wheel while Kylo tried extract his panicked fingertips from their grip on the dashboard.

“Oi!” Someone shouted from the pub beer garden, half standing from one of the tables with a raised fist. “City boy! Turn that shit down!!”

Hux turned his head slightly, pushing his sunglasses up into his hair.

He couldn’t hear the man’s friend over the stereo but it was easy enough to lip read the muttered, “Oh Jim, you’re so dead.”

“S...Sorry m’Lord Palpatine, s… sorry Sir, didn’t recognise you, Sir…”

Hux turned back to face the lights without a word, though his grin grew once the car was moving again. Perhaps the change to the road layout wasn’t such a problem after all.

“What was that about?” Kylo shouted over the music. “You’re not really a Lord are you?”

“It’s complicated.”

“What?”

Reducing the volume Hux twisted his lips as he debated what to tell his new husband.

“Well, that’s just what they call all the men up at the ‘big house’.” He said with a shrug. “Technically my grandfather is an Earl. Dad’s just his ex-son-in-law so he won’t inherit anything. And Sheev disinherited my birth-mother to make me his heir so, technically…”

“Technically what?”

“I’m a Viscount.”

Kylo stared at him. 

“Unfortunately there’s also a popular biscuit called a Viscount that has an orange flavoured variation… And a whole world of ginger based biscuits. And the surname. Boarding school was just an endless stream of unfunny biscuit puns with ‘fucks’ tagged on the end. To be honest getting into the Army where no one knew about the title and all I had to deal with was ‘Private Sux’ came as a bit of a relief.”

“Ah.” Kylo said thoughtfully. “Wait… does that mean  _ I _ get a title?”

Pulling into a driveway concealed by an overgrown hedge Hux chuckled under his breath. “Well, the wife of a viscount should be addressed as ‘Lady’, I don’t know any other married LGBT nobility but I guess you’d be ‘Lord Ren’... Oh for  _ fucks _ sake! Someone stole the lions again!”

“What?” Kylo blinked at the sudden change of topic, his head swinging around wildly as if looking for actual lions.

“There’s supposed to be two copper lions on top of those plinths but some fucker has stolen them.” Hux pointed at the archway they were driving through. “Probably thought they could melt them down for scrap. At least they unscrewed them this time so it’ll be easier to put them back- last time it happened they cut them off at the knees and they churned up the bridle path something chronic when they came back.”

“The thieves brought them back? Why, aren’t they real copper?”

“Oh no they’re real copper, they just bring themselves back.”

Kylo felt like a broken record when he said “what?” for the fifth time in as many minutes but Hux wasn’t listening. He’d pushed the convertible up to eighty despite the poor condition of the tree shadowed driveway and was back to grinning as he sang along to the stereo.

_ If there's some living to be done _ __  
_ Before your life becomes your tomb _ __  
_ You'd better know that I'm the one _ __  
_ So unchain your back door invite me around _ _  
_ _ Bring me ya daughter, bring me ya daughter to the slaaaaaauuuuughter _

The house was not what Kylo had imagined when Hux had described it as a ‘stately home’. Although he’d never admit it, Kylo had seen every movie adaptation of Jane Eyre and he’d been rather hoping for something more, well… stately. He’d expected huge glass windows and turrets and crenellations, whatever they were, and this was just… a bit shit.  


For a start it was pink. Not a bright garish pink, just a dull faded salmon colour over what seemed to be low quality render, with occasional splashes of horrible orange where an attempt at repairs had been made. The roof was green, not from the slates but rather a weird creeping lichen infestation that looked vaguely sinister where the underlying structure appeared to sag and buckle.  


It was also, Kylo realised slowly as they approached up the winding drive at terrifying speeds, not symmetrical. Not that he had some kind of obsession with symmetry, he didn’t, but it was clearly  __ meant to be and in some unquantifiable way it… wasn’t. Just looking at it too long gave him a headache.  


At least it seemed like the staff and Hux’ family were excited to see him- every single window was crowded with faces. In that respect the house was warmer than Han and Leia’s far more impressive mansion in The Hamptons had ever been.  


Kylo soon revised that assessment when the car screeched to a halt in a shower of stone chippings outside the main door - despite the August heat wave the air around the house was freezing.  


Shivering slightly he rubbed his arms while he looked around. The people at the windows had gone. No one came out to greet them.  


He watched with a frown as Hux strode up to one of the doors and shoved his arm into the letterbox. After a minute or two scrabbling around his hand emerged, dusty but triumphantly holding a key on a length of twine.  


The lock gave the exact horror movie sound effect he’d been expecting from it, but the door itself opened without the requisite creak of rusted hinges.  


“Hellooooo? Maratelle?” Hux shouted before muttering under his breath, “good, maybe she’s died. Ahem. Kylo, come here a minute?”  


He was standing just inside the doorway and somehow the shadows had leeched all the colour out of his form. Even his usually flame-like hair seemed grey and lifeless.  


Kylo looked at the hand he was holding out, suddenly nervous. He was 28 years old, 6’3” and 210lbs of solid muscle. He should not be freaking out at the prospect of a creepy, ugly old house.  


He swallowed and took his husband’s hand.  


“Welcome home, husband of mine.” Hux said in a somewhat formal manner.  


Impossibly the air seemed to get even colder.  


The formal tour of the house didn’t take long. It mostly consisted of Hux opening doors to rooms filled with dust sheet covered furniture and advising Kylo not to go in due to any combination of: worn out floors; collapsing ceilings; wet rot; dry rot; mould; mildew; and, in two of the rooms, protected bat colonies.  


There were thick swirling motes of dust in the air in every room, and Kylo felt sure that they settled on ghostly human forms amongst the shadows for a moment each time a new door was opened. He saw faces behind them in every mirror they passed and there was always the edge of a heel or skirt just turning the corner ahead of them but no one in the corridor once they reached it.  


He told himself his mind was just playing tricks on him right up until Hux showed him the Victorian bathroom.  


There was no two ways about it, the walls were definitely bleeding. There was a shrivelled ichor covered corpse in the bathtub and severed limbs scattered all over the floor. Thick semi-coagulated blood seeped over the toes of his boots as he stood horrified in the corridor.  


Hux sighed through his nose and crossed his arms petulantly across his chest.  


“Really, grandpa?”  


A horrible eldritch cackling echoed through the house. Above them the roof timbers creaked as if in agreement.  


“These boots cost $400, you know,” Kylo said flatly, imitating Hux’ disinterested tone of voice, “So that had better not be real blood.”  


The cackling stopped.  


“Did you really think I’d have married someone who couldn’t cope with your strange little ways?” Hux continued, apparently addressing the half skeletonised thing in the bath.  


“You have done well young Skywalker.”  


“His name…”  


“My name is Kylo Ren.” Kylo said confidently. He waved a hand and the house shifted. Life and colour poured back into the rooms around them, the air steadily warming up to normal summer temperatures as the blood and gore in the bathroom faded away. The tub was suddenly filled with sweet scented bubbles.  


The shriveled corpse-like form of Sheev Palpatine did not look impressed with this development. Not one bit.  


“Donal, help me out of the bath before this nasty stuff burns my skin off,” the ancient man hissed testily.  


Hux stepped forward with a tolerant smile, one hand reaching to support an emaciated elbow whilst the other held out a fluffy white towel. “You want this, don’t you?”  


Sheev clipped him around the ear with foam covered fingers.  


“Less of that, you cheeky little shit.”

“Yes, grandpa.”


End file.
